for the leader of these traitors and found the huge Ghost Child fighting beside a Skinwalker grizzly. That one, he decided. Then, he did a double-take, blinking away the film of smoke and grime in his eyes. This world was very dirty, he thought. His second look confirmed the impossible, a violet aura glowing all about the bear that stood beside the biggest of his offspring.
The third Seer!
“Get her!” he screamed. “Kill that bear!”
The horde turned toward the Skinwalker grizzly. He did not need to win this battle. He only needed to kill the Seers to ensure victory.
Soon he recognized two things: his numbers were inadequate because of the traitors, and he would not reach any of the Seers. Nagi billowed with fury, unwilling to accept what he saw.
He had hoped to avoid this step. But really, how could he? The Seers were all within his sight. All he need do was remove their souls and, poof, problem solved. And while he was at it, why not take the souls of the traitors and of the rest of the fighters, alive and dying? Simple, clean, foolproof.
Such a blast would mean that his loyal children would also perish, but who had time to sort them out?
Nagi summoned all his powers to tear the living souls from their living bodies. He had never reaped so large a harvest, and he was not strictly allowed to take souls from the living, but once done, he’d control the Living World. Then he’d make his own rules.
* * *
Alon’s fighters turned the battle. He sensed the malicious ghosts still hovering over the battlefield. The Seers had expelled them, but they waited for their hosts to recover to repossess them. His kind and the Seers still needed to send them to face their judgment.
But that must wait until after the last of Nagi’s forces fell. Alon gave them opportunity to run, keeping his forces from pursuit, but it did not matter. Nagi forced them back into the fighting. They would die at the hands of their siblings or die at the hands of their father. The entire battle made Alon sick.
It would not be long now. The wolves and bears chased the last of the Ghostlings.
Beside him, Samantha, bloody and weary, engaged a female of his kind as two of his own leaped in unison at him.
His claws ripped into the torso of one, finding the soft cartilage between the ribs. His attacker crumbled. Alon turned, lifting his spines, and heard the scream as the second’s soft underbelly contacted with Alon’s hundreds of knifelike quills.
Alon found Samantha had defeated another challenger and now bled from a wound on her shoulder that was terrifyingly close to her jugular. Alon felt fear lance him once more. Samantha’s injuries and the danger she faced overshadowed his own peril. He would give his life to save hers, even to get her to run. But she wouldn’t. He was admiring and furious in equal measures.
“What’s that?” asked Owen, one of his compatriots, a Beta twin just six years younger than himself.
Owen’s twin, Ophelia, turned with him to look in the direction Owen indicated. Samantha reared up to look.
Before them, the Skinwalkers were falling, rolling backward, crumpling to the ground and cascading facedown.
Samantha bellowed and fell sideways. Alon caught her as she toppled, feeling the blast of invisible energy that passed through him an instant later. It took his wind, leaving him unable to draw breath for a moment. Samantha, unconscious, shifted into her human form, her upper body draped in the great bearskin cape.
Owen recovered first. “They’re all changing back.”
Alon scanned the field. The Skinwalkers dropped in human form. The wolf pack toppled, naked in their hunting formation, still as death, and the pride of lions crumpled in the grass, their lion skins spread out about them like tawny wings. Even the great herd of buffalo now lay naked, their pale limbs poking out in every direction from beneath the curly-haired buffalo robes. The Owl, Raven, Eagle and Hawk Skinwalkers began changing and falling from the sky.
“Catch them!” Alon cried.
His men rushed to snatch them from the sky. Alon spotted a woman falling. His mother. He changed to his ghost form and flew as fast as he ever had along the ground, reaching her in time to change back and catch her in his arms. He lay her beside the fallen buffalo shifters and ran back to Samantha, leaping over the prone bodies.
“The Spirit Children!” shouted Ophelia.
Alon retrieved Samantha, clasping her